Pondering Tidbits of Truth - March 10, 2016

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.

Father Georges Chevrot

"You are often mistaken when you say, 'I brought my children up wrongly', or ' I did not know how to do good to those around me.' What happens is that you have not achieved the result you were hoping for, that you do not yet see the fruit you would have wished for, because the harvest is not yet ripe. What does matter is that you have sown the seed, that you have given God to souls. When God wants, those souls will return to him. You may not be there to see it, but there will be others who will gather in what have sown."

(From The Well of Life)

Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire. O.P.

“Many persons, through ignorance of the truly Christian life, are…greatly astonished when someone tells them that, in addition [to avoiding mortal sin, frequently receiving the sacraments, and making acts of devotion from time to time], one has to imitate Jesus Christ in His poverty, His humility, His penitence, His abnegation of self, His scourging, and His crucifixion -the only actions which really cost our corrupt nature. And yet, the Gospel is filled with this need to live just as Jesus Christ did; the lives of saints are so filled; the writings of the Fathers repeat it to every reader. But it is much easier to fashion for oneself a Christianity which allows living like the world but without mortal sin.”

(From Instructions for Novices by Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P.) 

Father Salvatore Canals 

Unfortunately, many people through a desire not to be unkind or to avoid telling someone that these are his last days, his last hours, on earth, avoid telling him how mortally sick he is, for example, and by so doing do him really grievous harm. But there are very many more people who see their friends in error or know they are in a state of sin, or about to make a mistake or do something wrong and don't open their mouths or lift a finger to prevent this happening. Can we really call people who act in such a way our friends? Of course not. And yet they act like that because they do no want to displease us.."

(From Jesus as Friend)